At one point this past week I had five – 5, works in progress. That wasn’t at all what I intended or was aiming for, it just sort of happened. I am ever so grateful and happy to have so many ideas wanting to manifest through me. I’m just a little surprised to have it happen. And to even have ideas for how to approach some additional projects come up while I was working on these. I think this next year is going to be pretty cool for my art.
So how did I end up, unintentionally, or accidentally having five pieces of art in progress at one time? It started with being a little antsy in a meeting. I decided I needed to do something to be able to stay a little focused so that I didn’t miss the meeting, so I got out the sketchbook, which I need to do more often but that’s another story. I will often draw a snowman and use that for testing a technique or a medium and that sort of thing. I was wanting to look at blending colors in stippling by using the different colored dots to get a color I want instead of mixing the color and then laying down dots of that color. So, the snowman was going to be my test of that idea. It sort of worked. But. I don’t think I’ll be focusing on that for a while. Anyway, I showed the piece, not done, to my sister who said it was cute and I should put it up on my store. Before she said that I had decided not to finish it. It’s in stippling and my pens are quite fine tipped.
My sister is very good at encouraging people. I like to call it ‘egging them on’ but we’ll go with encouraging as I’m sure that’s what she prefers to call it. To be fair though, I have been wanting to do something with Snowmen for a while now. I have done several Snowmen over the last several years. I have a lot of fun with them. They are never the same. They each have their own personality. I have one with a surfboard and one with a garden basket. So, it wasn’t like she had to push too hard. I decided to finish the piece. The nice thing was that because it was in my sketchbook, and small, and with liner pens, it meant I could sit on my couch and work on it while watching a holiday special.
That was one piece. I already told you about the turtle that I was working on. The sketch for that is finished. And I told you about the Telecaster headstock that I was having trouble with. That sketch is also finally finished. And I told you I was planning on some flowers. For those counting, that’s three pieces. That’s how many I was planning on starting but it doesn’t include the other subject matter I intended to work on. That would be the flowers.
I was thinking about how I was going to paint the flowers, which is a grouping, and I came to the conclusion that the format of the paper I was going to put it on wasn’t going to be the right shape, or big enough. While thinking about my past flower pieces, and the format, and what my options might be, I remembered that a few months ago I purchased some larger paper of the brand I used on the earlier flowers. The company is Shizen and I love the watercolor hot press sketchbook that I use. The paper is really lovely. The sketchbook is 8 inches by 8 inches. The larger paper is 12 inches by 12 inches. I think it might also be cold press instead of hot press. Anyway, I grabbed a piece of the larger paper and taped it to a drawing board and started sort of roughing in the placement of the key parts and before I knew it I had most of it sketched in, certainly I had it all placed with just a couple of areas that needed better detail. That brings the count to four.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough that I was in the middle of finishing the Snowman and had most of the sketch for the flowers done because later that night I started thinking about the previous flower paintings that I’ve done and how this new one, while the same shape, doesn’t quite fit. It’s a grouping where the previous pieces have basically been one distinct flower. So, I had a look at the reference again to see if there was a way to get a similar layout with this and make it look interesting. When I saw it might be possible, I got out the Shizen sketchbook and started to do a reference sketch for it, with enough detail to make it usable. And that’s how I got to five pieces of art in progress.
Before I continue with the current status of everything, I want to revisit what was my delusional ambition from my previous post. I was hoping to varnish the Ovation painting, finish the three sketches and get started on at least one of those. At this point I might have surpassed my ambition.
Here’s the status of my current art pieces. I have the Ovation painting varnished. I have got to get better at that. At least it’s protected. I hope it won’t make the photographer too crazy. It is supposed to be a satin finish but it’s glossier than I expected. The Snowman is finished and signed, it just needs to be scanned and posted on the store. I have four sketches complete and ready to start.
It really is exciting for me to have so many pieces in progress and ready to be worked on. And I have ideas and plans for how to approach some of them. And while I was working on a couple, I had ideas for how to switch up some of the composition for some future pieces. I’ve said it before, or something similar, I do so much better when I have something to start on as soon as I finish a piece. When I don’t have something to start right away, I lose momentum and sometimes have trouble getting started again. I had a little bit of that this time but once I got it going, things really started to happen. As you can see.
I expect to have some in progress pictures next time. And depending on what I’m working on maybe some insight regarding either the subject or the process. Oh, and, we’ll have started a new year as well. Here’s hoping for a great 2024. Cheers!